- Is this a new age of American imperialism?

This week on "Firing Line."

10 years ago, Donald Trump ran on a platform of ending foreign entanglement.

- We must abandon the failed policy of nation-building.

- [Margaret] But the capture of Venezuela's president, Nicholas Maduro, mark's a radical shift.

- So we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.

- It's immoral for the United States to say, "Well, all we want is oil, and we don't care how many Venezuelans are jailed, shot, exiled, turned into refugees if we can get a little bit of oil."

- [Margaret] Elliott Abrams served in the State Department under presidents, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump, serving a special representative for Venezuela in Trump's first term.

- The idea that you score around the world saying, "I want that and I'm taking it," that has not been American foreign policy, and shouldn't be.

- [Margaret] The threats don't end with Venezuela.

- Colombia is very sick too.

It's run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.

And he's not gonna be doing it very long, let me tell you.

- [Margaret] What does Elliott Abrams say now?

- [Announcer] "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by: Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Pritzker Military Foundation, Cliff and Laurel Asness.

And by the following.

- Elliott Abrams, welcome back to "Firing Line."

- Thank you.

It's been a long time.

- You served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan, of George W. Bush and of Donald Trump.

- Yeah.

- Most recently, you were a special representative to Venezuela in Donald Trump's first term.

Of all the countries that are relevant to America's national interest and security and global stability, how do you understand President Trump's focus on Venezuela now?

- That's a very good question, and I'm not sure I understand it.

That is, I can make the argument there's a migration issue, drug issue.

There really is a national security issue because there are plenty of Hezbollah and Iranian agents in Venezuela, there are Russians, there are Chinese, there's certainly Cubans.

I wouldn't have put it at the top.

You know, in a world where we're worried about Ukraine, for example, and Gaza and Taiwan.

Why the president decided to make this such a big deal now, actually, is a little mysterious to me.

I'm not quite sure I understand.

- (indistinct) we'll ever know?

- Yeah, memoirs.

- Yeah.

- I mean- - We'll understand the confluence of events that persuade him.

Initially, you thought regime change in Venezuela was the only way forward.

Now you expressed reservations about the way the Trump administration is handling Venezuela.

It's not going as you envisioned.

- It's not.

'Cause I wanted regime change.

I still do.

When we removed Maduro, I thought we would remove the regime.

And the regime consists of more than Nicholas Maduro.

It's... It was really a, in the old days, we call a junta.

I mean, it's a group of really bad people running that country.

And they're all there except for Nicholas Maduro.

- Venezuela's government is now run by Delcy Rodríguez, who had been the vice president.

Senior cabinet officials, as you mentioned, the Minister of the Interior and others remain in charge in Venezuela.

Why is this unworkable in your view?

- First of all, it's immoral for the United States to say, "Well, all we want is oil, and we don't care how many Venezuelans are, you know, jailed, shot, exiled, turned into refugees if we can get a little bit of oil."

That should never be the position of the United States, but it's also not gonna work.

It's not gonna work because Venezuelans voted, you know, 70%, just under, for the Maria Corina Machado ticket.

- [Margaret] Yeah.

- They want change.

They don't want this regime.

This regime has destroyed the country.

- To your point about oil, it hasn't announced that Venezuela will be giving the United States up to 50 million barrels of oil.

But President Trump told Joe Scarborough this week, quote, "The difference between Iraq and this is that bush didn't keep the oil.

We are going to keep the oil."

Now, people who share your worldview, who have been in positions of power in government have spent decades persuading the American public that we did not go to war for oil in places like Iraq.

- Right.

- And now the president's explicitly saying that's why we're there.

You just said the United States should never be in a position where we're in a country for their resources or for oil.

You said there's a moral argument.

Can you make that moral case for us?

- I think I can.

I mean, we believe in private property.

We believe in national sovereignty.

What are we doing going around the world saying, "You've got gold, we're taking it.

And you've got oil, we're taking that.

You've got rare earth.

We like that too.

And so we'll send in the army to take it."

That is not the kind of world that any of us wants to live in.

That's a might makes right world.

Now we've heard from Stephen Miller in the White House in the last few days, "Yeah, well, that is the world."

That is not the world that the United States tried to create after World War II.

A world in which powerful countries simply take what they want has never been the goal of United States' foreign policy.

Never, ever.

The idea that you're just going around the world saying, "I want that and I'm taking it."

That has not been American foreign policy, and shouldn't be.

You know, I think you get here into the question of Greenland.

- By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland?

What is the basis of their territorial claim?

The United States should have Greenland as part of the United States.

- No matter what the president and others are saying, we want Greenland, so maybe we'll take it.

I have felt that one of the great assets of the United States since the Second World War is this vast alliance system.

The Russians don't have it.

The Chinese don't have it.

We have it.

And not just NATO.

We have it all over the world.

So the idea that we would say to a NATO ally, Denmark, "We want Greenland, you have it.

We're taking it."

"We'll destroy," as the names have said, "just destroy NATO and the idea that we are actually a faithful ally ourselves."

- What will be the consequences of the destruction of NATO along those lines?

- It's the greatest military lines that's ever existed.

And I don't think it really survives, whatever is on paper, if the main actor in NATO, which is supposed to defend against outside sources, actually attacks another member of NATO.

That's it.

And then what we're saying to the Europeans now is, "You need to spend more on defense.

Why?

'Cause of Russia?"

It never would've occurred to anyone until the Greenland deal that, no, you need to spend more on your defense 'cause we might attack you.

It's nuts.

- There's some speculation about why now.

What is your sense having worked in many administrations, and knowing many of the individuals in charge of this administration, why now?

Why Venezuela now?

- To me, this is actually the greatest mystery, not what we're doing once we decide to prioritize Venezuela, but why did the president decide now?

I mean, not six months ago, not five years ago.

You know, could have done this in 2020, and he was not even thinking about it.

- If it's a mystery to you, do you think it's a mystery to all of our allies?

- Yes.

I think the idea that in his first year back when we've seen action in Iran, we've seen a war in Gaza, we have this ongoing question of is Xi Jinping to invade Taiwan, for the president to decide, "Okay, I'm back," and in the summer of his first year to decide on Venezuela.

I would suggest one thing.

It was June of 2025 when we did the attack on the Iranian nuclear sites.

It was fabulous.

I mean, it was a great success.

Then in the summer, he decides maybe, maybe, "I'm on a roll.

The American and military is fantastic and invincible.

Venezuela."

And then you start the military buildup in Caribbean, which did start in late summer.

It's a theory.

- It is unclear that the Trump administration is, in fact, committed to regime change, which you have supported.

Make the case why a democratic Venezuela is better than a Venezuela that is operated by remnants of the Maduro regime but compliant to the United States.

- Okay.

First, a Venezuela that is run by those remnants will always be a producer of vast refugee flows.

In fact, we'll see it now.

That is, if the Venezuelan people, a fourth of the population is left.

- Yeah, yeah.

- If they are persuaded, there's no change coming.

These guys are gonna be in charge forever.

Another million or two or three or four are gonna leave.

Second, I don't think there can be the kind of economic recovery they want and we want for them with this unbelievably corrupt regime.

And it is unbelievably corrupt.

And one of the things that struck me when I was doing this in the state department in the first term, we were not finding that people in the regime had a secret bank account with $5 million.

We were finding they had a secret bank account with $405 million, meaning amounts of money stolen are incredible.

They are the same people they were two weeks ago.

- Yeah.

- They're anti-American, they're pro-Russian, pro-China, they're thieves, they're criminals, they're drug traffickers.

We want a region that is stable and prosperous and at peace.

A democratic Venezuela will contribute to those goals.

A Venezuela under the current regime, which is still there, undermines those goals by destabilizing, by creating refugees, by inviting hostile foreign powers in.

It's part of the problem.

When I was in the Reagan administration, Venezuela was a prosperous democracy and it was part of the solution to democracy in Latin America.

It can be again, but not with this regime.

- The Trump administration's list of demands to Delcy Rodriguez, the new president, has included cracking down on the flow of drugs, extricating hostile Iranians, Cubans and other operatives, halting the sale of oil to our adversaries, and eventually holding free and fair elections.

Is she actually in a position to deliver all these things?

- No.

First, I don't think she's actually running the country.

I think she is the front for the two strong men who are, Minister of Defense, Minister of the Interior.

Both of whom are under indictment.

So how do we sort of, you know, happily deal with these people?

- Given where we are now and given that your ideal objective would be a democratic Venezuela, how would you advise that we would get from point A to point B?

- I still think it's possible.

First of all, we should be politically, as well as morally, supporting the Democratic opposition, which has landslide in the last election.

That doesn't mean that we insist that Edmundo Gonzalez, who won the election, is inaugurated tomorrow.

But it means that we say he's the legitimate president.

And at the end of the road, either he needs to be inaugurated or there has to be a new election.

There needs to be a negotiation between the democratic opposition and the regime.

This is a process.

Maybe it takes a year, but you start it with a negotiation with the bad guys and you end it with the full transition to democracy.

- Respectfully, I'm an idealist.

I want that to happen.

Respectfully, that it feels like a stretch based on where we are now.

- I don't think so.

- Why?

- I don't think it is if we are behind it.

We have just demonstrated this fantastic military (indistinct).

- We're behind Delcy Rodriguez.

That's why it feels like a stretch.

- No, oh, yes.

I mean, if you're asking what do I think the White House is doing now, the White House seems to be saying, "You know, but, of course, I mean, someday there'll be an election."

Meanwhile, however, we are not doing anything that would lay the foundation for that like saying, you know, fundamentally, we are behind the people who won the election and we start a process here.

We're not doing that.

- Beyond that, the president of the United States denigrated María Corina Machado in his first press conference in front of the world.

- Yeah, I thought that was lowest point of the press conference, and one of the low points of the Trump administration.

- I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader.

She doesn't have the support within, or the respect within the country.

She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect within the country.

- What is the impact of that on the opposition movement?

That is a severe setback.

- It's a severe setback, not just to the movement in the sense of politicians, but to all Venezuelans who are looking and saying, "Well, we want... The doors now open to change."

And the president seems to have said, "No, not really."

It's terrible.

- There are reports that the Venezuelan government has launched nationwide crackdowns, including the detention of journalists, the deployment of armed gangs in the streets.

Is it possible that the newly sworn in President Rodriguez has tricked Trump in some way, has offered support for his goals, is playing for time?

- I don't think she tricked him.

I think- - Is she playing for time?

- She's definitely playing for time.

And I would say, look, what would you and I do if we were in the shoes of Delcy Rodriguez and, you know, Minister of Defense, Minister of Interior, these other criminals?

We would say, "Well, I'm entirely clear what Trump's gonna do.

We may get to stay here forever."

He talks about elections, but he'll be gone in three years.

Maybe we can keep pushing it off.

What does he want now?

Let's beat up some demonstrators.

Let's see what Trump does 'cause the answer might be he does nothing.

Let's push it.

Let's see what we can get away with.

And my fear, of course, is they're gonna find that as long as the oil begins to flow, the President is not particularly interested.

- If removing Maduro was so clearly in America's interest, why not make the case to Congress or the American people beforehand?

And I ask you this in particular because you have spent a lot of time in previous administrations talking to Congress.

- Yep.

- Coordinating with the intelligence committees and coordinating with the relevant committees of jurisdiction in the Senate and the House.

Why not collaborate with the first branch of government?

- I think it's a combination of the weakness of Congress and mistake on the part of the administration.

Some of this, you know, goes back a long ways.

Congress, I came to Washington a long time ago, 1975.

To be a committee chairman then, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senate Finance Committee- - These are the powerful positions in Congress.

- You were a grand Duke.

- Yeah.

- Congress is really supplying these days.

And you can blame a series of presidents, and indeed you should.

- And the expansion of executive power over the years.

- But you've gotta blame the Congress too for not standing up and demanding its own constitutional prerogatives.

We could have gotten, the president could have gotten very substantial bipartisan support from Congress for, well, for the promotion of democracy and I would say for regime change in Venezuela, and he just wasn't apparently interested in it.

- Donald Trump has threatened military action if Delcy Rodriguez is uncooperative.

And certainly, the officials, Diosdado Cabello and the other minister, Padrino, understand that the threat of military action could be quite meaningful to their futures.

The initial operation was so remarkably successful that I wonder if against the backdrop of the success of Midnight Hammer in Iran and this, there is a risk of hubris with respect to the abilities of the American military and that future actions may not be so easy.

Is there a risk of American lives in the future with future and continued military action?

- There is a risk.

I do think that the fantastic success in the killing of Soleimani, and then in Midnight Hammer, and now with this, which was much more complicated and flawless, runs the risk of teaching the President a lesson, which is, that the American military can do literally anything, and there's no risks.

And, of course, that's... The only thing that makes me think maybe that won't happen, November is coming.

And he knows that if he tries something and it doesn't work, the repercussions could come pretty quickly.

- Electorally.

Trump has also threatened action against Colombia and Mexico.

- [Elliott] Yeah.

- Without Congressional approval or support from these countries' democratically-elected leaders, would that be appropriate or is Venezuela a unique situation?

- I think Venezuela is unique partly 'cause it's such a hostile regime.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You know, with Cubans and Iranians, et cetera.

I do think the possibility of military action in Colombia exists.

I don't think it really exists in Mexico.

I mean, I think all the president's friends on Wall Street would tell him, "Do not do that.

Our economies are-" - Too intertwined.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Colombia is a different story.

It's not such a cooperative government right now.

- [Margaret] Yeah.

- Lots of coca growing.

So I think that'll still be on the President's mind.

- You've worked for many secretaries of state.

In the Reagan administration, the Bush administration, also in the Trump administration.

You have known Marco Rubio for many years, and we have all observed his evolution from being a rather hawkish member of the United States Senate to fully embracing the MAGA agenda, and now serving as the viceroy of Venezuela, some joke.

How is Marco Rubio doing?

What grade do you give Marco Rubio as Secretary of State so far in this administration?

- I think time's up.

We have to go now.

I mean, that's... (Margaret laughs) That's a really hard question.

Look, every Secretary of State has to do this.

He's not president.

He actually ran for president.

I supported him when he ran, 2016.

But it didn't happen.

So one of the things he's doing, you take orders from the guy who's president.

He's also trying to survive in a very difficult environment.

- You mean the political environment within the White House in this?

- I do.

I mean, the whole administration, the vice president, other people in the White House, other people in the cabinet, the MAGA movement.

- Yeah.

- Republicans on the hill.

The whole Republican Party.

That can't be easy.

So I have a lot of sympathy for how hard it must be to do that.

I do not think that he has, you know, cashiered a whole lifetime of views about American foreign policy.

I think he's trying to figure out how to make it work.

You know, Rex Tillerson in the Trump first term just basically walked out.

I mean, said, "I'm gonna do it my way."

That doesn't work.

So, you know, the outcome, I can give Rubio, I guess, a B. I'm sure there are many things that he would like to do or not do.

I mean, it's hard for me to believe that he thinks it's great for the President or Stephen Miller to threaten to take Greenland.

But again, you know, you live in an environment, and you make the choice.

Donald Trump is not new to the scene.

He'd been president.

- [Margaret] Yeah.

- So Rubio knew what he was getting into.

- Marco Rubio, of course, is of Cuban descent.

This action in Venezuela probably puts more pressure on the Cuban government than any other government in this hemisphere.

- Yeah.

- [Margaret] What are the consequences potentially?

- I think, potentially, the fall of the regime.

I mean, you know, they're in horrendous trouble right now.

- Of the Cuban regime?

- Of the Cuban regime.

I mean, the economy's collapsing.

I think the regime's in real trouble.

Not tomorrow morning, but Trump has, and Rubio has presumably three years.

The chances that that regime collapses- - In the next three years?

- [Margaret] I think it's a real possibility.

- Would that be a win for Marco Rubio?

- Huge.

Amazing.

I mean, a lifetime achievement as the son of immigrants from Cuba.

- A lifelong dream?

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

In 1987, you were a guest on William F. Buckley Jr's program "Firing Line."

Take a look at this clip.

- The goal of our policy as in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and the rest of Latin America is democracy.

Democracy.

That's the goal of the policy.

We hope that democracy can be obtained through a negotiating track.

If it cannot, I had hoped it clear that our view is you need to continue aid to the resistance as the only other method short of us use of force to attain that goal.

But that's the goal, democracy.

I'm using the same lines.

- If Reagan's ultimate goal in the region was democracy, how would you define the Trump administration's goal?

- Dominance of the Western Hemisphere.

- That's what he said in his national security strategy, and yet when he was asked by a pool reporter on the plane, "What is the goal of this action in Venezuela?"

his answer was, "World peace."

It was not peace in the region, it was world peace.

- You know, look, I'm not a shrink, but I think part of this is he wants admiration, he wants respect.

He wants not to be viewed as a sort of accidental, way out of the history of American presidents.

He wants to be viewed as a great success who brought peace.

And my criticism is not that he wants peace, we all want peace.

It's that he doesn't seem to realize that there are regimes in the world, the Chinese regime, the Russian regime, that don't want peace, that never want peace.

You can't have peace with Vladimir Putin because he wants to recreate the Soviet Empire.

So doing deals with him is necessary sometimes, but in the long run, that's not how you get to world peace.

- When you joined the State Department in 1981, you wrote a memo declaring that human rights is core to our foreign policy because it is central to America's conception of itself.

Trump's national security strategy completely rejects pursuing democratic and social change abroad.

It has tried to cut funding for American soft power, like the National Endowment for Democracy, where you serve as a senior fellow.

It seems to me there's a battle right now between what America was and the values that you have suggested we have always stood for and the values the current administration is promoting.

- I think that's right, and it's ironic that it happens in the 250th anniversary year of the United States.

If the administration is not itself going to be fighting for those values and promoting them and explaining them, then others are gonna have to do it.

Maybe it's us.

Maybe it's people on the hill.

Maybe it's, probably not, people in universities.

We're gonna have to do it without Donald Trump, but it needs to be done.

And this 250th year is a great year to do it.

- I could talk to you forever.

Elliott Abrams, thank you for joining me on "Firing Line."

- Thanks for inviting me back.

- [Announcer] "Firing Line" with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by: Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Pritzker Military Foundation, Cliff and Laurel Asness.

And by the following.

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